Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Immediately pour into prepared pan. Do not scrape the pot. (Scraping comes later, with a small metal spoon, before the caramel is fully set. Thus, you do not have to wait several hours to get a taste).

Remove plastic wrap from caramel. Turn caramel out of the pan, onto a sheet of parchment paper. Peel the parchment paper (or foil) from the caramel.

Using a large kitchen knife and tape measure, cut caramel into 1 inch wide strips. Cut into strips into 3/4 inch wide pieces. Arrange caramels on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet (10x15 or larger). Do not allow any of the caramels to touch one another. Sexual harassment is bad, and another post entirely. Suffice it to say, NO BAD TOUCH!

In a double-boiler, over simmering water, melt 12 oz of the chocolate of your choice. Once chocolate is fully melted, remove pan from heat. Add the remaining 4 oz chocolate. Stir to fully melt.

Using a fork, dip each caramel in the chocolate and place on a sheet of parchment paper. Before the chocolate has a chance to harden, sprinkle with a few grains of sea salt. I sprinkle every 12 caramels or so.

Cool completely and enjoy!

Store in mini paper baking cups in an airtight container.

*****

This recipe makes 108-120 caramels, depending on whether you use a metal baking pan with relatively sharp corners and straight sides or a Pyrex baking dish with rounded corners and slightly sloping sides. When using Pyrex baking dishes, I always trim a significant portion of the outer edges to get uniformly shaped pieces.

I like to sprinkle white sea salt on dark chocolate, pink sea salt on milk chocolate. I think the contrast looks lovely. Regardless of how you choose to dip and sprinkle, these caramels are a fantastic treat!

After making two batches for this morning's service, I have just enough left over to send out some care packages to dear friends. How fortuitous that the "salt and light" passage fell a week before Valentine's Day. I feel the siren call of the fates, and they are singing, "Valentine's chocolate! Valentine's chocolate!"